Day 27 — How to Achieve and Maintain Fitness and Health Goal

Today we will talk about an important topic which is always missed. You might have came across many books or stories that highlight the achievement story. They explain everything they did to achieve their goal, but, don’t mention what will help to maintain the achieved goals.

And, no one really know what happen after one achieve goal?

Was they able to maintain the progress or lost within few month?

But…

You’re at the best place. Today you’ll learn how to simplify your maintenance, so that you stay on track for lifetime.

In today’s time, we’re very busy and it’s a tough task to keep on hustling to achieve the goal. Any fitness goal should be achieved once and later work on to preserve it. To make the idea clear, we’re going to explore both — Achievement and Maintenance phase.

First let’s start with the Achievement Phase….

Achievement Phase

It’s a challenging phase and demands complete dedication. You have to dedicate time and effort to learn new things. It may feel tough as you have to step away from your comfort zone. Constant ups and down may make your life tough. But those hurdles will simplify with time.

1. Eat Nutrient Depending on Goals

Every person’s requirements differ depending on their goal. Planning nutrition depends on the need, it may be weight loss, weight management, muscle gain or particular health condition. The plan will differ depending on body weight, goal, health condition and progress rate.

Don’t go with any hustle to be perfect but there will be slight changes.

2. Change Your Plan Every 2-4 Week

You don’t need to change your plan daily or weekly. Stick to a plan for at least 2-4 week and keep checking your progress. If you found that your growth is stagnant, you can make slight changes. You don’t need to completely change the routine. Slight changes in intensity, reps, and duration will be enough.

3. Start With The Basic

If you’re getting started, you don’t need the most advanced strategy.

Understanding the basics is the first step to start any routine.

You first need to know

How body works

Problem creating habits

Healthier habits that can be added

How body react on something

All these are the basic thing but will help you build a stronger foundation.

4. 80-90% of Your Weekly Food Intake Should Be From Unprocessed Food.

It might look like one of the strict routines. But be assured that it’s not about strict routine.

I don’t say that you have to cut every food you like. You can eat but you shouldn’t overdo it.

As you know that there are many food products available. Each of these food make big claims but just after exploring their nutrition label, the truth can be seen.

These are food we consider healthy but proves to be nightmare.

To make sure they don’t ruin your effort, stick to a simple rule — eat unprocessed food major of time.

While, 10-20% of weekly food intake can be from unprocessed food.

5. Stay Tough and Disciplined At The Beginning

I may have said that it will be the simplest task to achieve the goal. But you, and even I know, any changes aren’t easy as it looks.

We have to go through transformation and every change in tough in the beginning. But stay assured, your disciplined and dedicated effort will give you the desired result you wanted.

6. Start Slow

It doesn’t matter how slow you start, it’s about getting started and getting into motion. Don’t stuck in a plan to make extreme changes, as it will stop you from getting started.

Eating routine, listening to body’s signal, daily active choice, food choice and many small things. All these may look small changes but when we look at small progress each one make, you will get a humongous result.

7. Focus on Progress

Progress is still progress, even though its slow.

Instead of focusing on making extreme progress, focus on small progress. Slow changes with no injury will lead to a better progress.

Maintenance Phase

The next phase is the maintenance phase. It’s more important than achieving the goal. If you don’t put effort to maintain, you will lose everything. Months of effort will be lost, leaving you in the same place from you got started.

To avoid those, let’s look at how you can manage with ease.

1. You Still Need To Be Disciplined

Whatever you learned till now, it’s time to follow it. You don’t have to spend extreme effort to maintain your gain.

Eat healthy, engage in fitness activity, and follow healthy habits. All that you learned earlier, you have to follow the same.

2. Track But Less Frequently

The next thing is to keep track of the progress. You don’t need to be precise. It’s just to know whether you’re on the track.

Carelessness for 2-3 day or week won’t make much difference but if you’re not tracking, you won’t know the changes.

So, to stay aware of the change, keep track.

You can track things like:

How much time you went out to eat

Were you listening to the body’s signal

Change in weight — keep at least 2-3 week gap

Mental health

3. Keep Eye on Triggers

Triggers are a common reason for failure to adopt or continue a healthy lifestyle.

When you took an effort to build healthy habits — you took care of triggers and acted on it.

You have to do the same during the maintenance phase. Take care of triggers. Don’t be strict but take care that it doesn’t go out of control.

4. Change Nutrition As Per Need

Nutrition is king — still the rule is the same. Your nutrition demand will change so you need to change as per need.

As you’re on maintenance phase, your nutrients will change compared to what you required during an intense workout schedule.

Like…

Your protein intake will lower from 2 grams to 1.6 to 1.2 grams per kg of your body weight. You don’t have be to perfect, just listen to the body’s signal.

80-90% percent weekly food intake should be from unprocessed food.

Don’t cut yourself from any party or event — just be mindful while eating. While rest will be handled with ease.

5. Enjoy Your Eating Moment

Cherish your food.

Cherish the source of energy and nutrients.

Cherish the source of flavour.

Food is your health and well-being partner. Cherish it instead of having any regrets. Enjoy it with your family and friends.

Until you’re eating the least unprocessed and balanced food, you won’t have any setback. And healthy foods are even tasty. You just need to play to different cooking styles, spices and herbs.

6. Find Things That Work For You

Every person is different and also their need. Considering such criteria, the things that worked for other, won’t work for you.

Looking at someone plans and their result may be tough to ignore. But if you’re looking for a real change, you have to find things that work for you. The person you might be looking might have planned his or her routine depending on their need.

Learn and take inspiration but don’t copy anyone’s plan.

Your primary plan should be to get a better results without adding any stress on yourself.

7. Keep Challenging Yourself

Your fitness and health journey has just started. After achieving a goal, major people quit what gave them the best result. Instead of quitting everything you learned, you should change your mindset. You don’t need to hustle for the lifetime but keep following things you learned.

You can also challenge yourself to push in your fitness routine. Or look for other healthy recipes. Or try other healthy habits.

There are many areas of improvement.

And the last but the most important — you’re doing everything to improve your life. So look for things that can add something fun without compromising your goal.

With all these tools, you’re ready to get a lasting result. You won’t just change your life but also people’s life you come across.